Adrian Gilbert - In Search of the Invisible College

In 1642 or thereabouts, a group of eminent ‘Natural Philosophers’ began meeting together in London and Oxford on a semi-regular basis. Some fifty in all, their number included eminent professors, clergymen, alchemists and amateur astronomers.

Called The Invisible College, not all of the members were resident in England or even English. What they had in common was a belief that through the practical application of the scientific method, a new age of enlightenment could be brought into the world.

In 1663 the College was replaced by the ‘The Royal Society’ and it ceased to exist.

In this presentation Adrian Gilbert will examine the history of the Invisible College; he will explain how our situation today is the reverse of that faced by the ‘Invisibles’. For them it was religious dogmatism that was a bar to self-development, for us it is an overly dogmatic science.